Okay kids, so we have discussed Shakespeare's use of Blank Verse or Iambic Pentameter, but here is where it gets good, and relevant for you.

Like I said in class, much of Hip Hop and Rap just also happens to be in Iambic Pentameter. While "Lose Yourself" is not all iambic Pentameter - the first verse certainly is.

Can you hear it? Here is a clean version of the song. Listen to the first verse.

The verse below starts at :54 seconds and ends about 1:19.

His PALMS are SWEATy, KNEES weak, ARMS are HEAVy There's VOmit ON his SWEATer alREADy, mom's spaGHETTiHe's NERVous, but ON the SURFace he LOOKS calm and READy To DROP BOMBS, but HE keeps ON forGETtin What HE wrote DOWN, the WHOLE crowd GOES so LOUD He OPens his MOUTH, BUT the WORDS won't come OUTHe's CHOKin, how EVeryBODy's JOKin NOWThe CLOCK'S run OUT, TIME'S up OVer, BLOah!

Can you find a verse of a song that fits? If you do separate it into feet as well. I'd love for some verses (clean please) to be added to the comment section

I don't understand how to interpret iambic rythm!! please help because i am lost!!!

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Ms Cronk

11/5/2012 11:48:08 am

Okay here are few points:

1. each iamb is a stressed and unstressed syllable together, it almost sounds like a heartbeat. so this sentence:

His PALMS are SWEATy, KNEES weak, ARMS are HEAVy

is actually 5 iambs ..

1(His PALMS) 2(are SWEATy), 3(KNEES weak), 4 (ARMS are)
5 (HEAVy)

(Pentameter means that there are 5 Iambs in the line, Iambs can also be referred to a foot/feet 1 iamb=1 foot)

Keep in mind that Shakespeare did this for his key parts because it is easier for the actors to remember their lines, kind of like memorizing a song. It also sounds great on stage.

I used this video to introduce it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p226OX39OLs

I would also suggest that you watch a couple scenes from what ever you are reading on Youtube to hear the Iambic Pentameter.

I hope this helps!!

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mike

7/25/2014 10:33:18 pm

First all his palms are sweaty knees weak arms are heavy is nottt iambic pantemeter. Sweaty has two syllable s thus making it 11 syllables and the last two syllables aremt in the right order the word heavy has a stressed syllable at the begining followed by an unstressed. Which is flipped. Not da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum. But da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum da.

Allison

9/29/2014 12:47:05 pm

This is a very flawed demonstration of metrical scansion. An iamb is not simply a pairing of a stressed syllable and an unstressed syllable; it is specifically an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Examples would be construe (con-STRUE), about (a-BOUT), review (re-VIEW), etc. Many of the examples you're calling iambs are actually trochees, with a trochee being a metrical foot comprised of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Examples of trochees include poem (PO-em), Franklin (FRANK-lin), coffee (COFF-ee), etc. In your comment, then, the line you have isolated does NOT demonstrate five iambs--at least, not as you've scanned the line. "His PALMS" is an iamb, yes, but "are SWEAT-y" is not because you have included three syllables in the foot: unstressed, stressed, and unstressed ("y"). You then scan "KNEES weak" and "ARMS are" and call those iambs--but with those breaks and stresses, they are trochees, not iambs. However, if you correct your mistaken inclusion of the "y" in the previous foot, it results in this scan: "are SWEAT/y KNEES / weak ARMS / are HEAV/y." In that case, "y KNEES," "weak ARMS," and "are HEAV" do in fact scan as iambs. The "y" of "heavy" becomes an extra syllable at the end of the line, scanned separately from the iamb. This is a hypercatalectic variation on the iambic line (more simply put, a "feminine" ending). This isn't even delving into the issues with the rest of the scansion--say "he keeps" aloud, for instance, and where does the emphasis fall? Do you actually emphasize "he" rather than "keeps"? HE keeps? I think it's clear that "he KEEPS" makes more sense, as emphasizing a basic pronoun over an action verb isn't intuitive to spoken English. Long story short, I love the idea of using rap music to teach metrics, but this lesson is misleading and inaccurate.

This is tiny point for Allison which is simply that rap does not scan like the spoke at all. So using heuristics about what gets emphasized wehn speaking naturally will i nvariably fail when applied to rap.

That's one of the biggest differences between the amateur sounding rap of parody and real rap. A significant part of the art of flow is mangling pronunciation and emphasis in a way that preserves meaning, adds entendre, and fits the metrical scheme.

Maniacal MC

1/22/2016 08:36:52 am

#Mike
Your information is hard to respect. Sure Ms. Cronk may be incorrect; however, you are arguing on an English website with dreadful grammar. Your post contains miss spellings and typos throughout. Try some logic before you post an argument next time.

Joe

3/4/2016 05:54:10 am

You did it wrong

Ash

12/10/2017 09:09:56 pm

Okay but isnt it supposed to have a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable????

Bozigs

1/28/2013 02:41:05 am

How about Eminem's "The Way I Am" and you have the pun of I AM like IAMB just as Dr. Seuss did with Sam I am in Green Eggs and Ham!

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Rick

6/25/2013 03:32:26 pm

That is actually written in anapestic tetrameter, at least the first verse is.

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anna

5/1/2014 03:58:33 am

THIS IS NOT IAMBIC PENTAMETER ITS ANAPESTS.

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T

5/18/2014 01:49:48 am

Um...what are you talking about? This is definitely Iambic. You know, with the emphasis on every other syllable and such. Anapestic meters have emphasis on every third, like in both verses of the song "The Way I Am."

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E

6/9/2014 12:48:33 pm

This seems like a stretch. It sounds like the stresses appear like this:

His PALMS are SWEATy, KNEES WEAK, ARMS are HEAVy
There's VOmit on his SWEATer alREADy, MOM'S spaGHETti
He's NERVous, but on the SURFace he looks CALM and READy
To DROP BOMBS, but he KEEPS ON forGETting
What he WROTE DOWN, the WHOLE CROWD, GOES so LOUD
He OPens his MOUTH, but the words WON'T come OUT
He's CHOKin', HOW EVeryBODy's JOKin NOW
The CLOCK'S run OUT, TIME'S up OVer, BLOAH!

But the first time I heard the phrase "iambic pentameter" was about 10 minutes ago.

I would guess that any iambs are purely coincidental. Listen to the song again especially during the second half of the verse starting with "What he wrote down." Mostly all of the stresses are there to accent his "oh-ah" rhyming scheme.

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Lollie

4/30/2016 11:56:41 am

Really? Attempt to teach inner city high school students! We use what we can to capture a fraction of interest with students who have daily concerns of addicts for parents, and fathers in prison! Love the lesson! I teach in the "hood!" My students now have a desire to study Shakespeare!

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Charlie

9/16/2016 04:18:06 pm

"We use what we can to capture a fraction of interest with students who have daily concerns of addicts for parents, and fathers in prison!" -- I understand this reason, as I used to teach in a school similar to yours. It's really difficult to get some of them interested in a lesson that they usually dismiss as unnecessary, irrelevant, or incomprehensible. This seems to be the general response most children initially have when introduced to Shakespeare's works. I myself felt this way when I was still a student. But our attempts to connect our students to Shakespeare and to make them enjoy learning his works should NEVER compromise our standards in teaching, one of which is simply: Teach them what's RIGHT.

Inner city children's have a much desire to learn Shakespeare outside of the poor relativelity others tried to prove here. Very distasteful for you to throw an ad homiem and dismiss there learning ability only to a single way of 'learning' honestly can't believe why an educator would post such a statement

I realize this lesson is flawed in regards to what metrical foot Eminem used; however, one could still use this song as practice for students to identify stressed and unstressed syllables as well as rhythm. To address the argument on pronunciation, MC Akala, from the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company, discusses Shakespearean pronunciation and how words were manipulated in order to fit the neeeds of iambic pentameter. Shakespeare could rhyme mood/blood because of how it was pronounced during that time period. Although as an educator I will not be using this song to teach iambic pentameter, I will use the song to encourage students to think about rhythm, rhyme schemes, and metrical feet (stressed/unstressed) in order to ease them into Shakespeare. My hope is that they will see the beauty in Shakespeare's ability to compose such intelligent and sophisticated pieces of art using rhythm and language--much like many hip-hop artists do today.